This study uniquely evaluated and provided support for the Perfectionism Social Reaction Model by assessing changes in perfectionistic cognitions among young adults pre-pandemic to intra-pandemic and the extent to which exposure to childhood adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were associated with changes in the frequency with which young adults had thoughts centered on the need to be perfect. Young adults (n = 195; 52

Perfectionism among students is recognized as a factor that has complex associations with academic performance and well-being. Yet, we know little about how teachers perceive and make sense of it. Consequently, this qualitative study explored teachers' perspectives on student perfectionism in classroom contexts. A sample of teachers (n = 26; 84% female) completed semistructured interviews that revealed that teachers are commonly confronted with perfectionism in their classrooms and have complex understandings of its benefits and drawbacks for students. Although teachers acknowledged some benefits of perfectionism, they concentrated primarily on its negative effects. Each theme was assessed for potential differences in perspectives between teachers who self-identified as perfectionists and those who did not. However, no group differences emerged, and as such, all themes can be understood as representing both perfectionistic and nonperfectionistic teachers. Collectively, results support the critical role that teachers can play in understanding perfectionism among students, including how it impacts student learning and well-being.

Understanding and managing perfectionistic behaviours in students is a critical challenge for teachers. Consequently, this qualitative study sought to assess the strategies that elementary and secondary teachers in Ontario, Canada use to respond to perfectionism in their classrooms. Open-ended survey responses from 197 teachers (83.25% female, M age = 40.21, SD = 9.00; 66.50% elementary teachers) and semi-structured interviews with a subsample of 26 teachers (84.62% female, M age = 41.19, SD = 10.95; 65.38% elementary teachers) were analyzed using thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. Findings indicated that teachers employ a range of strategies, such as encouraging a growth mindset, offering individualized support, fostering strong teacher-student relationships, and cultivating self-care among their students. Despite their efforts to build resilience and strengthen students’ sense of self, some teachers highlighted the persistent nature of perfectionism and expressed frustration with their limited capacity to effectively support perfectionistic students. These findings highlight the importance of recognizing perfectionism as a significant educational issue and suggest that insights from teachers’ observations and classroom strategies could inform psychoeducational assessment and targeted professional development.

This article focuses on how adolescent female competitive dancers reported perceiving, negotiating, and navigating parental involvement in their competitive dance activities. Our qualitative study involved dancers who compete in General Competitive dance, Highland competitive dance, and Irish competitive dance. Dancers identified several areas of importance around parental involvement including consideration of autonomy and decision-making, and connections between knowledge of dance and parental expectations. Our data indicate that dancers have a nuanced understanding of parental involvement and support including gendered expectations of parental roles, the importance of dancer autonomy, and an appreciation of the time and financial commitments made by parents. Dancers stressed the importance of finding the right balance that works for individual parents, dancers, and families given their specific interpersonal dynamics and preferences. This research highlights the importance of ongoing discussion of expectations, support, and involvement between parents and dancers to maintain positive and mutually supportive dancer-parent relationships.

Our paper reports on the development and psychometric properties of the Therapeutic Mentalization Scale for Group Therapy (TMS-GT). The TMS-GT is an 11-item self-report measure designed to assess individuals' experiences of having been mentalized in group therapy. Two combined samples of adults (n = 157; Mage = 28.4, SD = 12.1) participating in separate outpatient group psychotherapy treatments completed the TMS-GT posttreatment, with a subsample (n = 87) completing the TMS-GT again 3 months later and the other subsample (n = 70) completing measures of group psychotherapy processes and psychiatric symptoms. Multilevel exploratory factor analysis identified the two-factor structure of the TMS-GT, reflecting two dimensions of the experience of having been mentalized: mentalized attunement and mentalized continuity. The two subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and temporal stability. Moreover, additional psychometric findings provided further support for the validity of the TMS-GT. Overall, preliminary analyses suggest that the TMS-GT appears to be a reliable and valid measure of the experience of being mentalized among adults participating in outpatient group therapy.

Although theory links perfectionism and negative social outcomes, little is known about their longitudinal associations in adolescence. As such, prospective, reciprocal associations between perfectionistic self-presentation and peer experiences were tested among a community sample of adolescents (Mage = 17.79, SD = 1.29; 72.38 % girls) via a random intercept cross-lagged panel model with four timepoints. Results demonstrated that, on average, adolescents higher on perfectionistic self-presentation had less favourable peer experiences. Moreover, there was a reciprocal relationship between non-display of imperfections and peer prosociality, such that withinperson increases in attempts to conceal perceived flaws predicted decreases in receiving prosocial acts from peers which, in turn, promoted increases in this facet of perfectionistic self-presentation. However, findings also revealed a decrease in perfectionistic self-presentation in response to increases in peer prosociality, suggesting that, through positive peer experiences, adolescents may learn that perfectionism serves as a barrier to meaningful social relationships and adjust accordingly.

The Perfectionism Social Disconnection Model (PSDM) contends that perfectionism predicts psychopathology via social disconnection and has received support in adult and adolescent samples. However, little is known about the role of online connection. Consequently, this work tested whether online social connection and in-person social support uniquely mediate the relation between perfectionistic self-presentation and depressive symptoms among adolescents. A community sample of 354 adolescents ( M age  = 15.51, SD = 2.07; 68.93% female; 73.44% White) completed surveys assessing these constructs at three time points, each spaced approximately 2 months apart. Results supported the PSDM at the between-persons level such that perfectionistic self-presentation was related to depressive symptoms via online social connection and in-person social support. Importantly, these findings both replicate previous work which has predominantly focused on in-person connectedness and extend this body of work by demonstrating that online social connection is a significant mediator over and above the role of in-person social support. However, there was no longitudinal evidence for the PSDM at the within-persons level. Future directions and implications are discussed.

Perfectionism has been a popular topic of interest in psychological research over the last three decades, with research focusing on youth emerging in the early 2000s. However, the term 'perfectionism' is rarely used outside of a psychological framework. Despite lexical differences, girlhood studies researchers have employed a sociocultural lens to study 'supergirls': teenage girls who strive to have it all, at all costs. Although these literatures seem to explore a similar phenomenon, they tend to remain disparate. Consequently, this paper argues for the utility of a multidisciplinary framework for studying youth perfectionism to bridge these two seemingly opposite, yet mutually informing, literatures. First, disciplinary understandings of youth who strive for perfection in psychology and girlhood studies, respectively, are summarized. In the following section, a multidisciplinary reading of the extant literature is applied to offer a nuanced account of who a teenage perfectionist may be and how perfectionism might manifest among diverse youth. This article concludes with a call for researchers from both psychological and sociocultural backgrounds to embrace a multidisciplinary framework for research with perfectionistic youth.

This article introduces a measure of self-condemnatory internal dialogue as an element of the relationship with the self: The Automatic Self-Recrimination Scale (ASRS). Using the construct validation approach to test construction, we describe the initial development of items and report on findings from a clinical and nonclinical sample showing the ASRS is best understood as a multidimensional measure of self-critical internal dialogue composed of one higher-order factor and four lower-order facets: Not Mattering, Self as Failure, Undeserving Self, and Loathsomeness. The overall scale and four subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Moreover, there was evidence of good convergent and incremental validity of the ASRS subscales with measures of perfectionism, self-criticism, and dysfunctional attitudes. Overall, the ASRS appears to be a reliable and valid measure of an automatic self-recriminatory internal dialogue.

Prospective associations between trait perfectionism and academic achievement among undergraduate students were tested via a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Undergraduate students (N = 316) who were enrolled in the core first- and second-year courses of a social sciences undergraduate program (M-age = 18.01 years, SD = 0.06; 74.86 % female) completed surveys on multidimensional perfectionism and authorized the use of institution-verified grades for research. At the between-persons level and in line with previous research, self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) was positively linked with academic achievement whereas socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) was negatively related with academic achievement. At the within-persons level, an increase in academic achievement at the end of students' first year of university, compared to their own personal mean, predicted an increase in SPP at the midterm of their second year of university, demonstrating that academic achievement may encourage undergraduate students to "raise the bar" via amplifying their perfectionistic tendencies

Previous research on parent‒child relationships has focused more extensively on younger, school-aged children and adolescents, with mothers receiving more attention than fathers. In addition, there has been a greater focus on problematic parenting (e.g., helicopter parenting) and less research on supportive forms of parenting that can promote positive outcomes during emerging adulthood. The current study utilized the framework of self-determination theory to examine the association between positive parenting and well-being in a sample of emerging adults. Specifically, we examined the associations between positive maternal and paternal parenting approaches and emerging adults’ basic psychological needs and well-being, with a focus on emerging adults of diverse ethnicities. Our primary hypotheses were that positive parenting would have significant: (a) direct associations with emerging adults’ basic psychological needs and (b) indirect associations with emerging adults’ well-being through their basic psychological needs. The participants were 1209 emerging adults aged 18–22 years (M = 19.27; SD = 1.53). The results revealed that parenting had significant positive direct effects on emerging adults’ basic psychological needs and indirect associations with their well-being. These findings suggest that positive parenting continues to play an important role in emerging adulthood and highlight the need to work with emerging adults and their parents to establish strategies to support positive parenting that meet psychological needs during this time of life.

Little is known about how perfectionistic adolescents experience social connection in online spaces. The current qualitative study addressed this gap by examining themes related to social (dis)connection in online and in-person settings from semistructured interviews with 43 adolescents (M-age = 15.16, SD = 2.43; 62.8% female; 58.1% white; 54.4% self-identified perfectionists). Results demonstrated that perfectionists expressed feeling less connected online than nonperfectionists, likely driven by heightened levels of interpersonal sensitivity. However, a subgroup of perfectionists sought out meaningful online relationships, often in response to a fear or experience of rejection by in-person peers. The results highlight the role of interpersonal sensitivity in fueling feelings of disconnection among adolescent perfectionists in both online and in-person settings, as well as the importance of self-monitoring in the social experiences of perfectionistic youth.

Background: Receiving a cancer diagnosis can lead to various psychosocial disturbances. Perfectionism is associated with several psychological problems in the general population, but its role in cancer remains to be assessed. This exploratory qualitative descriptive study aims to examine the role of perfectionism as a vulnerability factor underlying the psychosocial difficulties encountered by people with cancer. Methods: A total of 10 women with nonmetastatic breast cancer who self-identified as perfectionists were recruited at the end of their radiation therapy to take part in a focus group or an individual interview. Results: The hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis revealed the following themes: (1) various dimensions of perfectionism; (2) low self-compassion; (3) control seeking; (4) low self-disclosure; (5) low social support seeking; (6) various coping strategies; (7) relative stability of perfectionism after cancer; (8) need to be a perfect patient; (9) negative psychological impacts; and (10) low interest in an intervention targeting perfectionism. Conclusions: This exploratory study psychosocial difficulties that may be related to perfectionism in patients with breast cancer, from both a systemic and an individual perspective.

Converging evidence indicates that the high prevalence of perfectionism and associated pressures to be perfect among adolescents constitute a growing societal problem, especially given concerns about the mental health of young people. This qualitative study sought to understand how adolescent perfectionists recruited from the community define and think about perfectionism. Semistructured interviews were completed with 46 self-identified adolescent perfectionists (M-age = 16.33 years, SD = 1.93; 44 females, 2 males). Analyses yielded new key insights about how adolescent perfectionists define and think about perfectionism. Themes that emerged confirmed the multidimensionality of perfectionism and associated self-evaluative, self-presentational, and cognitive tendencies. Unique themes included the role of social comparison and the commitment to perfectionism despite recognizing the costs. The picture that emerged from this work is that perfectionism is exceptionally complex at the construct level and has elements that account for the heterogeneity that exists among adolescents who all share the self-identified label of being "a perfectionist. " Most notably, this work highlights the importance of understanding the need to be perfect and how perfectionism goes well beyond striving for excellence. The implications of this work are considered in terms of assessment, prevention, and practice.

This prospective longitudinal study evaluated changes in psychological distress among adolescents, pre-pandemic to intra-pandemic, the extent to which within-person and between-person differences in trait multidimensional perfectionism were associated with such changes, and the role of stress in explaining associations between perfectionism and psychological distress. Adolescents (N = 187; 80% female; 78% White, 7% Asian Canadian, 2% Indigenous Peoples in Canada, 2% Black or African Canadian, 2% Latin Canadian, or 9% Other; Mage  = 17.96 years) completed online surveys assessing perfectionism (i.e., self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism), depression, anxiety, and stress pre-pandemic (i.e., March 12, 2020 or earlier) and during Ontario, Canada's first (i.e., March 13, 2020 to July 24, 2020) and second (December 26, 2020 to February 7, 2021) government-mandated lockdowns. Between-person differences and within-person changes in multidimensional trait perfectionism were associated with increases in psychological distress and perceived stress. Perceived stress served as an intermediary pathway linking multidimensional trait perfectionism to psychological distress during the pandemic.

Emerging adulthood (spanning ages 18-25 years old) is a critical time of developmental transition. Although the COVID-19 pandemic led to multiple disruptions in the lives of emerging adults (EAs), little research examined the impacts from the perspectives of both EAs and their parents, who were spending increasing amounts of time together, particularly during the early pandemic stages. From May to July 2020, we interviewed 27 EAs and 12 mothers who were recruited from an ongoing longitudinal study. Themes were derived using conventional qualitative content analysis. Mothers and EAs described challenges and impediments of COVID-19 that fell under three larger categories: Challenges related to COVID-19, Coping Resources and Strategies, and Parental Support. Both mothers and EAs recognized that COVID-19 had led to disruptions in the developmental trajectories of EAs, requiring significant adjustment and coping. They reflected on the increased time together as both an impediment (i.e. to physical and mental health, unhealthy coping) and an opportunity (i.e. for bonding, healthy coping). Our findings highlight the need to address the significant challenges faced by EAs as a result of the pandemic, as well as the role of parents as important sources of support for their EA children during times of stress and crisis.

Background: Exposure to tobacco and cannabis during developmental periods of enhanced vulnerability (e.g., in utero and early childhood) may have long-lasting effects on child health. One potential mechanism underlying these associations is the alteration of inflammatory pathways. Using data from a longitudinal study of mother/ child dyads, we examined the adjusted and combined associations of prenatal and postnatal tobacco and cannabis exposure with inflammation in early childhood. Furthermore, we explored the relations between different measures of exposure, partly reflecting differences in timing, dose, and level of fetal exposure (e.g., selfreport vs. biomarker), and inflammation. Finally, we explored child sex as a moderator of prenatal and postnatal tobacco and cannabis exposure and inflammation. Method: Women were recruited from a local hospital during their first prenatal appointment. Repeated assessments were conducted at each trimester, at birth, and when children were 2, 9, 16, 24, 36, and 60 months old (N = 215; 112 female children). To evaluate associations with different measurement approaches, prenatal tobacco and cannabis exposure were assessed using: 1) continuous dose-response variables of maternal self-reported tobacco and cannabis use during each trimester to assess associations with timing and severity of exposure, 2) categorization of children into exposure groups based on drugs and metabolites present in infant meconium reflecting later pregnancy fetal exposure, and 3) categorization into exposure groups using a combination of maternal self-report data and biomarker data derived from maternal saliva samples and infant meconium taking advantage of multiple methods of assessment to examine group differences. Postnatal exposure to tobacco (assessed using child salivary cotinine) and cannabis (assessed using maternal self-reported average joints smoked per day) was measured at each infancy/early childhood assessment. Adjusted pre- and postnatal exposure associations with child inflammation were assessed by including both measures as predictor variables in linear regression models predicting child salivary C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations at 60 months. Interactions between pre- and postnatal exposure variables were then modeled to investigate the combined relations between pre- and postnatal substance exposure with child salivary CRP concentrations at 60 months. Results: Adjusting for postnatal exposure variables, there was a significant interaction between the average daily cigarettes and the average daily cannabis joints smoked during the third trimester predicting salivary CRP concentrations in early childhood. At high tobacco exposure, the effect of cannabis on CRP concentrations was negligible, whereas at low tobacco exposure, the effect of cannabis exposure on CRP concentrations was positive. Adjusting for postnatal tobacco and cannabis exposure, children for whom meconium data indicated co-exposure to tobacco and cannabis showed approximately 43% lower CRP concentrations at age 60 months compared to children with no exposure. However, when mother/child dyads were categorized based on a combination of maternal self-report data and biomarker data from saliva samples and infant meconium, there were no differences in salivary CRP concentrations at age 60 months across the three groups (no prenatal exposure, prenatal tobacco exposure only, prenatal co-exposure to tobacco and cannabis), controlling for postnatal associations. Regardless of the measurement method used to assess prenatal exposures in adjusted analyses, prenatal tobacco exposure alone did not predict CRP concentrations in early childhood, nor did postnatal tobacco exposure.